Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A wreath or garland for the head.
  • noun A string of beads resembling a rosary, used to count iterations in a devotional sequence of prayers.
  • noun The sequence of prayers counted on such a string of beads.
  • noun A string of beads.
  • noun Architecture A small molding carved to resemble a string of beads.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To crown or adorn with a chaplet.
  • noun A small chapel or shrine.
  • noun A wreath, as of natural flowers, worn on the head, especially as a mark of festivity or distinction.
  • noun In the middle ages, a circlet of gold or other precious material, more or less ornamented, worn by both men and women.
  • noun In heraldry, any garland or wreath, whether of leaves alone, as of laurel or oak, or of flowers.
  • noun Any head-dress; a hood or cap.
  • noun A string of beads used by Roman Catholics in counting their prayers; a rosary, but strictly only a third of the beads of a rosary.
  • noun Anything resembling in form a string of beads.
  • noun Same as chapel-de-fer, .
  • noun In architecture, a small round molding, carved into beads, pearls, olives, or some similar design.
  • noun The tuft or crest of feathers on a fowl's head.
  • noun In oyster-culture, a row of shells or other objects suspended on wire to collect the spat.
  • noun Same as chapelet in any of its senses.
  • noun In foundry-work, a sheet-metal form used in adjusting the core in a mold and fused into the casting when the metal flows into the mold.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A garland or wreath to be worn on the head.
  • noun A string of beads, or part of a string, used by Roman Catholic in praying; a third of a rosary, or fifty beads.
  • noun (Arch.) A small molding, carved into beads, pearls, olives, etc.
  • noun (Man.) A chapelet. See Chapelet, 1.
  • noun (Founding) A bent piece of sheet iron, or a pin with thin plates on its ends, for holding a core in place in the mold.
  • noun A tuft of feathers on a peacock's head.
  • noun A small chapel or shrine.
  • transitive verb To adorn with a chaplet or with flowers.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A garland or circlet for the head.
  • noun A string of beads, especially when making up five decades of the rosary.
  • noun A moulding in the form of a string of beads; a bead-moulding.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun flower arrangement consisting of a circular band of foliage or flowers for ornamental purposes

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English chapelet, from Old French, diminutive of chapel, hat, wreath; see chapeau.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • O! for some honest lover's ghost,

    Some kind unbodied post

    Sent from the shades below!

    I strangely long to know,

    Whether the noble chaplets wear,

    Those that their mistress' scorn did bear,

    Or those that were us'd kindly.

    - Sir John Suckling, Sonnet III.

    February 7, 2009